State-of-the-Art Passive Beam-Steering Antenna Technologies: Challenges and Capabilities

This article reviews the latest developments of beam steering antennas that are entirely passive to realize interference-free, power-efficient, and highly secured end-to-end wireless communication. We briefly introduce metamaterials and metasurfaces, a timely advanced topic in electromagnetics (EM) and optics. Mathematical formulas associated with the design of beam steering metasurfaces have been numerically explained. In addition, reflect and transmit array antennas are also discussed for an in-depth understanding of beam scanning principles in elevation and azimuth planes. We then provide intuitive design examples and discuss three broad classes of the latest beam scanning antenna systems, namely 1) Reflectarrays (RAs); 2) Transmitarrays (TAs); and 3) Near-Field Meta-Steering (NFMS) antennas that are available in up-to-date literature. The third category’s unprecedented scanning performance and aesthetically compact size are elucidated compared to previous antenna systems, such as reflector dishes or large phased arrays. Alongside the working principles, the trade-offs for the scanning techniques, operation, and physical size of each antenna type are also discussed. Towards the end, an evaluative conclusion with a comparative discussion on the beam-steering antenna systems is provided. Future research directions considering mass-market demands are also indicated.